Torkham border closure
Pakistan expects Kabul to respect its territorial integrity, says FO
ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday expressed the hope Afghanistan would respect Pakistan’s territorial integrity and ensure Afghan soil is not used to launch militant attacks in the country.
The Torkham border was closed on September 6 after at least two people, including a Frontier Corps (FC) official, were injured when a gun battle erupted between Pakistan and Afghan border forces.
Officials in Pakistan blamed the other side for starting the midday firefight, which lasted for around two hours and came after the Afghan authorities started building a checkpoint on their side in a prohibited area, close to the main border crossing.
Officials said the Afghan authorities already had a checkpoint, commonly known as the Larram Post, in the vicinity, but they started building another post over a small hill without discussing it with the Pakistani side.
A day earlier, a meeting between Pakistani and Afghan border security officials to reach an agreement over the reopening of the border remained inconclusive.
In a statement issued on Monday, FO Spokesperson Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that the statement by the Afghan foreign ministry had “come as a surprise as the interim Afghan authorities know fully well the reasons for the temporary closure” of the border.
The FO spokesperson said that Pakistan could not accept the construction of any structures by the interim Afghan government inside its territory since this violated the country’s sovereignty.
Baloch said that on September 6, Afghan troops had resorted to “indiscriminate firing, targeting Pakistan military posts, damaging the infrastructure at the Torkham border terminal, and putting the lives of both Pakistani and Afghan civilians at risk, when they were stopped from erecting such unlawful structures”.
“Such unprovoked and indiscriminate firing on Pakistani border posts cannot be justified under any circumstances,” the FO spokesperson said, adding that such unprovoked firing by Afghan forces emboldened terrorist elements.
“These [terrorist] elements are enjoying sanctuaries inside Afghanistan as confirmed by the UN Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team in its latest report,” she added.
The FO spokesperson said that Pakistan had always stated that it wished for the border with Afghanistan to be one of peace and amity between the two countries.
“We have welcomed our Afghan brothers and sisters with open arms for decades. Pakistan has continued to exercise restraint and prioritise dialogue in the face of persistent unwarranted provocations by Afghan troops deployed along the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border.
“Temporary closures take place only in extreme cases such as the September 6 incident on the border or when Afghan soil is used to launch terror attacks inside Pakistan,” Baloch said.
She also highlighted that the statement issued by the Afghan foreign ministry included “irrelevant comments and unsolicited advice” about Pakistan’s economy and foreign trade. Agencies
